Receptionist Mary Jones checks in a patient at the Cayce Family and Dental Clinic. Most employers offer their employees some sick leave. / Dipti Vaidya / The Tennessean

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Eva Botkin-Kowacki

The Tennessean

Most workers eligible

Seventy-three percent of full-time private industry workers in the United States were provided with paid sick leave plans in some form in 2009, according to a study of Bureau of Labor Statistics data from the National Compensation Survey.

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When flu season arrives, urban areas get hit hard. Most workers who get sick are able to take time off work to recover, but others push through because they can’t afford to miss any pay.

The debate over requiring companies to offer mandatory sick pay has been front and center recently. Earlier this week, lawmakers in New York City overrode a mayoral veto to pass a law that will require companies to give workers paid sick time. This law will go into effect in April 2014 for employers of 20 or more workers.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott last week signed a bill into law to effectively block any municipalities in the state from passing legislation requiring paid sick time. Florida joined other states, including Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi, that have laws blocking such requirements.

Regardless of state and local laws, the issue of whether to provide paid sick time to employees is a question that every employer must address at some point.

“I think most employers try to be caring and do the best for their employees,” said Elizabeth Washko, labor attorney at Ogletree Deakins. Washko, who represents employers, said companies “want to have the ability to provide the benefits to have a good and happy work force,” but “if people are out sick, then things aren’t getting done at work.”

Sandy May, a part-time stylist at SuperCuts, said that even the full-time employees at her workplace are likely to work when they’re sick, because they need the tips from customers.

May, for instance, worked at an Aveda salon in Los Angeles, which was privately owned. Her boss at the time didn’t let stylists miss work, because that meant missed profits. May said she was forced to work sick one time at her old job — the other stylists got sick and the salon had to close for a week.

“Most employers are trying to do the right thing and recognize that people need sick time,” said Anne Martin, labor attorney at Bone McAllester Norton PLLC. However, many times the employee faces a tough decision.

“Your average employee cannot afford to take unpaid time off, they just can’t,” Martin said. “People worry about missing too much work and the impression that makes in terms of their productivity.”

“Taking too much time off does set a bad example for yourself” and your work ethic, said Derrius Hambrick, who works in financial services at the Verizon Wireless call center in Franklin. Hambrick works on contract, so he receives no benefits.

However, he said, he would take up to three to five days off if he got sick, because “you run the risk of getting others infected.”

Mary Bufwack, CEO of United Neighborhood Health Services, says many walk-in patients are frustrated to wait because it is taking time away from the workplace. She said if you’re “choosing between your employment and the doctor, I think employment is going to win out.”

Bufwack thinks legislation would be good because it “opens the conversation about good employment practices.”

Murfreesboro Medical Clinic combined paid sick and vacation time into an all-purpose paid time off, or PTO, package several years ago, said Nell Womack-Moore, director of human resources. “We felt it was penalizing the employees that never took their sick time off.”

Employees earn a certain number of days each year, depending on how long they have been with the company. Those working 40-hour weeks start by getting 13 days off during their first year, after 90 days. As an incentive to keep some time for sick, the extra time rolls over to the next year or employees can sell those hours back to the clinic.

Terry Turner, CEO of Pinnacle Financial Partners, said his company made a decision to be generous with the time included in the standard employee package. Pinnacle employees average 4½ weeks of paid time off a year.

“Good employers do good things almost irrespective of what the laws require” and vice versa, Turner said. “If you pass a law that mandates sick days, that will come out of other paid time off. So employees are the losers, not the winners.”